


Reciprocal

by Lucibell



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 21:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucibell/pseuds/Lucibell
Summary: "Are the acrobatics really necessary?He had never thought about the choices he made in his role as the Arrow. Big picture concerns, sure—killing, not killing—but the details? Leave it to Felicity to question the minute choices, to pay attention to how they coalesce into a specific persona, how they reflect the person underneath the hood."Set sometime after Season 2, when Olicity was just getting started. This is only Olicity if you squint.





	Reciprocal

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in a folder for years, and was probably meant to be a larger work, but given the direction the show has gone it's probably not relevant anymore. I don't know that I could remember what the trajectory was supposed to be. I hope that you like it anyway.
> 
> Unbetaed. _Arrow_ and all of its characters/affiliates are the property of Time Warner, Inc.  & DC Entertainment.

“Are the acrobatics really necessary?”

Oliver looks up as his foot finally touches the solid, blessed, _safe_ concrete floor of the Foundry. He meets Felicity’s gaze and looks away, tugging the hood down and moving to reposition the bow in its case. He continues to settle himself, dismantling the Arrow persona until there’s nothing left but Oliver Queen. He does not answer her, does not look back at her, but he can feel her gaze burning into him, his shoulder, his back, his hands, his head—wherever he imagines she is looking at any given moment. When he pulls off the custom-made Nikes and is left with nothing else but the leather-and-spandex pants, he wonders if she’ll continue to watch him. The thought thrills him for a brief moment, and then he makes his way to the bathroom and a shower, tugging a towel off of a rack on the wall on the way.

When he returns he relishes in the feel of soft cotton against his skin instead of the suffocating leather, and settles into a chair across from Felicity’s workstation. She is idly tapping at the screens and keyboards, not doing anything in particular as far as he can tell. But she is deceptive like that. He towels his hair and clears his throat. She half-turns towards him.

“Now you want to talk?”

He takes a deep breath. “I needed a minute.”

She hits another key with finality and turns to fully face him. He meets her gaze and hangs there, struggling to find her irises behind the glare of the lenses she wears. He knows she looks away when she pinches the bridge of her nose, lifting the frames of her glasses a few centimeters. “You’re going to break a leg out there,” she says. He looks down at his hands, draped between his parted knees. There are angry bruises forming on the backs of his knuckles. “I’m pretty sure you almost did.”

Oliver looks back at her face, his head still bowed. After a moment it begins to strain his eyes, so he settles his gaze somewhere around her knees. His left leg is beginning to throb just below the hip, indicating the near-injury she’s talking about. He can’t say that she’s wrong. He _had_ torqued his leg at the end of a miscalculated leap, and had it been a few degrees off or if he’d put more momentum behind it, it probably would have broken. The femur is a big bone, but it isn’t invincible.

_He_ isn’t invincible, and Felicity seems to be the one most acutely aware of the fact.

Oliver opens his mouth and inhales to speak, but the door to what was once Verdant slams shut and Diggle’s voice rains down on them instead. He releases his speech in a sigh and looks at her once more, but she’s already turned back to her computer screens. He tries to focus on what Diggle is saying, how she is responding, but his head is swimming and the pain in his leg begins to metastasize to a place behind his eyes. He turns to his right and pulls a drawer open to grab a bottle of painkillers. When the cap pops, he feels their eyes on him, but focuses on the motions of dispensing the pills and tossing them back. He swallows them dry and replaces the bottle in the drawer, closing it gently. When he finally looks over at the two, they’re staring at him with what he reads as concern, but he doesn’t comment.

He rises from his chair and in a brief moment of forgetfulness puts equal weight on his left leg. It nearly collapses beneath him and he hisses, reaching for the table. He readjusts himself and takes a deep breath. Perhaps there is a minor fracture, but there’s nothing to be done about it. He looks up and finds Felicity’s face. Any anger she might have been feeling when he returned to the Foundry is gone, and she moves to support his left side. She is tiny, fitting herself beneath his shoulder, but if he has learned anything about Felicity Smoak, it is that she is strong. She leads him to a nearby cot and helps him settle onto it. It creaks beneath his weight and she reaches for a blanket, pulling it over him. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at her for a long time as she sits on the edge of the cot. She doesn’t touch him, doesn’t speak. They just stare at each other as the analgesic kicks in, and when it does, his eyes flutter closed and his muscles relax, sending one last shooting pain through his leg before all is dark.

He wakes surrounded in softness, but knows, _knows_ , that he can’t be in his bed in the Queen mansion. The mansion is no longer his. Thea and his mother… Gone. Instead of opening his eyes, he presses his eyelids tighter together, forming spots in his otherwise darkened vision. He seeks his former, drug-induced haze of peace, but it’s gone. The throbbing in his (mostly bare, had he done that?) leg remains, the only reprieve from it is the softness of the sheets surrounding him. He buries his head in a pillow and catches a whiff of something distinctly feminine and familiar. He breathes deeper, searching for the memories the smell invokes—anything to forget his most recent losses—and finds fleeting images of blonde hair and blue eyes. _Felicity_.

Oliver hears a small thud just ahead of him, and opens his eyes. Once they focus properly, he sees an MIT mug with tendrils of steam curling up and away from it on a nightstand. She stands next to the bed in soft, dark pants and an MIT hoodie. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t let his eyes wander, he just stares at the M-I-T emblazoned on her sweatshirt. Perhaps the drugs haven’t completely worn off after all.

Felicity settles onto the bed, drawing one leg up and tucking her foot under the other leg as it hangs down to the floor. He notices that her feet are bare.

“Hey,” she says. Her voice is slightly hoarse, her hair a little mussed in a low ponytail, and he assumes she has just woken up.

Oliver clears his throat. “Hey,” he replies, equally as hoarsely. He can taste his own breath and curses himself for how bad he knows it reeks. Felicity gives him a small smile and he figures she’s ignoring it, doesn’t mind, or hasn’t noticed.

“How are you feeling?”

He takes a deep breath, exhales slowly. “Hurt.” It is a single word that encompasses his entire being. He is in various modes of pain, a place he’s been more times than he can count, and he just _can’t_ anymore. Felicity’s smile drops a little and she furrows her brow.

“I brought you some coffee. I have your painkillers in the kitchen.” She pauses for a moment and he stares at her face and waits. “Would you like some breakfast?” she asks.

He nods and pushes himself against the pillows to sit up. He hears his mother’s voice in his head, _Mind your manners_. “Yes, please,” he says. He reaches for the coffee as she rises. “Thank you,” he says. She smiles again and disappears into the hallway.

Oliver listens to the distant sounds of Felicity in her kitchen and stares at the things in her room. She is neat, organized, _meticulous_ , and he realizes that the only way she is able to memorize, deconstruct, and reconstruct the massive amounts of code she works with is for her to be organized. She is calculated, thoughtful, and he envies her patience. He has always been slightly scatterbrained and impulsive, and it has gotten him in trouble more than once.

_Are the acrobatics really necessary?_

He had never thought about the choices he made in his role as the Arrow. Big picture concerns, sure—killing, not killing—but the details? Leave it to Felicity to question the minute choices, to pay attention to how they coalesce into a specific persona, how they reflect the person underneath the hood.

He offhandedly notices that the coffee is exactly how he would make it himself—again, _details_ —and spots a scholarly journal on the other nightstand. He sets his coffee mug down beside it and picks the journal up, flipping to the table of contents. He is surprised to find Felicity’s name in the list of authors, and scans the rest of the room. He sees no other journals, but he knows that Felicity’s home is a house, and so assumes there are more in an office somewhere. He flips to her article and begins reading, picking his coffee back up as he does so.

Felicity returns to her bedroom just as Oliver finishes the mug of coffee and is halfway through her thirty-page article. He looks up at her as she enters. “”I didn’t know you were published,” he says. She sighs.

“There are some things I like to keep to myself, Oliver.”

He blinks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude—”

She waves a hand. “It’s fine. You would have found out eventually.” She moves to the left side of the bed. “Here,” she says, reaching out her arms. “Let me help you to the kitchen.”

Oliver stares at her a long moment and then lays the journal on the nightstand, followed by the coffee mug. He scoots slowly over to her, wincing as he twists his leg the wrong way. He gingerly places his foot on the floor and lifts his arm. Felicity ducks under it and pushes up with more strength than he remembers her exhibiting before. She supports him as he plants his right foot and shifts his weight. She reaches for the coffee mug and at the very last minute he snags the journal. She looks up at him and quirks an eyebrow. He notices that her glasses have slipped down her nose. He frees his right index finger and pushes them up for her, giving her a small smile. “It’s interesting. I want to finish it.”

Felicity wrinkles her nose but remains silent. She leads him down the hallway (he spots the office he’d assumed before) and into the kitchen. There is a small breakfast nook with a tidy table with mismatched chairs and two plates of food. She helps him settle into a chair in front of the plate with more food on it—eggs, bacon, toast—and turns to walk back to the kitchen.

“Would you like more coffee?” she asks.

He breathes in the smell of the food and his stomach growls. “Yes, please.” Oliver realizes that he is only in his boxer briefs when the chill of the chair hits the backs of his legs, but Felicity has seen him in various stages of undress before. He reaches for his fork as Felicity retreats, and picks up reading the journal where he’d left off. He doesn’t hear her return until she sets the MIT mug in front of him with a glass of orange juice. She retreats back into the kitchen and Oliver watches her walk away. Her gait is slow, tired perhaps, and she tilts her head and presses her fingers into the muscle connecting her neck and shoulder. It occurs to him that he had slept in her bed, and he wonders briefly if she has a guest room or if she’d slept on her own couch.

Oliver watches her as Felicity makes her own cup of coffee and returns to the table, a copy of the _Star Gazette_ in her hand. She lays the paper and her mug down and picks up her fork as she sits, brushing her hair over her shoulder to fall down her back as she sticks the fork into a lump of scrambled eggs. He lays the journal face down on the table.

“Did you carry me here?” he asks with a smirk.

Felicity lifts her left eyebrow and glances up at him quickly before focusing on the paper next to her, grabbing a strip of bacon and taking a loud bite. “No,” she says. “Diggle did.”

Oliver sits up straight and breaks a piece of bacon and eats it. “This is delicious,” he says. She looks back at him, picking her head up fully this time. “Thank you.”

Felicity looks from his eyes to some indeterminate place near his food and nods. “Anytime,” she says.

“Why didn’t you leave me at the Foundry?”

She bows her head a little and stares at her own food. “You aren’t well,” she says.

“Felicity, it’s just a sprain—”

She shakes her head, lowers the paper to the table slowly and spreads her hands out on the wood surface. “No, Oliver.” He pauses, searching her face. She looks back at him and meets his gaze. The dim light in the breakfast nook allows him to see her eyes through the lenses. They are red-rimmed and bloodshot, but Oliver can’t tell if it’s from crying or sleeplessness. She breathes in through her nose. “You aren’t _well_.” Her voice cracks as it rises in pitch and she looks away from him. “And I couldn’t let you wake up alone in a dark basement.”

Oliver closes his eyes and bites the inside of his lip, reaching blindly for Felicity’s hand. He finds it and squeezes and she returns the pressure. He knows in that moment that it would be useless to argue, that Felicity and John know him well enough to know his state of mind, how hurt and broken he is, so he just breathes in and lets the hurt and the gratefulness wash over him. He focuses on the pain in his leg, thinks about the detrimental losses he’s suffered in the past few weeks, and anchors himself to Felicity’s hand. Slowly, one by one, tears begin to fall, and he continues to focus on his breathing, on the softness of Felicity’s hand, on the pain. It goes without saying that Oliver Queen doesn’t cry much, but he realizes the value of emotion, and how dangerous it can be when it goes undealt with.

Felicity remains silent beside him, and when he opens his eyes he finds that tears have stained her face, too. The redness, then, is from crying, he decides. Which probably led to sleeplessness. He remembers then how much Felicity has been through, how Slade might have treated her, taunted her. That Thea had been dear to her, too, though distantly, simply because Thea was Oliver’s sister. He remembers that Felicity’s life is now intricately entwined with his, and that his losses, to some extent, are also hers, and that she has experienced traumas that he hasn’t. He realizes slowly that this interaction is mutually beneficial, that Felicity isn’t well either.

Oliver reaches across and brushes the wet from her face on the left side, following through and cradling her cheek with his hand. “We’ll get through this, Felicity,” he says. She takes a deep breath and raises her eyes to meet his, lifts her hand to cover his. “We’ll do it together.”


End file.
